Details

Designed by Jean Claude Constantin this puzzle is the big (VERY BIG) brother of the Lock 250 also available for sale at Mr Puzzle. (see photo for size comparison)

The 8 steel sliders on the front move the internal wooden plates of the puzzles and which slider you can move depends on the position of the internal plates. It may not look like it at first but actually the Generation Lock is in the same family as the Chinese Ring puzzle and others classified as n-ary puzzles. Where the Chinese Ring puzzle is a binary puzzle, moves have 2 states, the Generation Lock has 15 states (or 15 positions) so it's a 15-ary puzzle. I wonder what the technical term for that is?

Dr Goetz Schwandtner from Germany did an analysis of the number of moves to solve the puzzle and came up with over 340 million moves! 341 718 750 to be exact. He says that "assuming we employ a group of puzzlers willing to work full time on this lock, without holidays and in shifts, so that the solving is going on 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year, and on average 2 seconds per move, this will take about 21.6 years". A big thanks to Goetz for the analysis. He has published his theory here if you're interested to read more.

Size: 300mm x 190mm x 50mm

The puzzle is made from laser cut plywood and the outside is veneered.